Leeds United end huge swap year still seeking happiness - Graham Smyth's Newcastle United Verdict - YEP 1/1/23

Farewell 2022, Leeds United won't forget you but they won't miss you.

By Graham Smyth

A year that began with two Premier League wins soon went horribly awry, resulting in the inglorious end of a glorious managerial era. Ten months since Marcelo Bielsa's February 28 sacking, Leeds still haven't fully moved on, not in the emotional sense anyway - the Argentine still dominates conversations in and around the club - and the best moments of his storied tenure remain a yardstick that has been used to beat the club in its darkest moments.

Of those there have been too many and even the brightest moment of the entire calendar year was only so because it narrowly averted disaster and what would have been the most painful of relegations.

That day at Brentford aside, it's not accurate to say Jesse Marsch has not known good times as Leeds head coach because that win over Chelsea was very good and the one at Liverpool was even better. But moments, fleeting in their nature, do not make for the kind of sustained happiness craved by managers and supporters alike. When moments, or individual games exist as islands in difficult, stormy seas, then it's all too easy for the man in charge to become isolated from the fanbase.

It wouldn't be fair to judge a football club or a head coach on a calendar basis, when seasons straddle the end of one year and the start of the next, but even taking just this campaign into account, Marsch is hoping his best days and therefore sustained happiness lie on the 2023 side of New Year's Eve. Unable to yet fully convince the entire Leeds support that his plan is the one to take the club on to something better than his predecessor's, Marsch made no bones of the difficulty of such a task in a league as difficult as this one in his pre-Newcastle United talk.

Saturday's hosts could not better represent the nightmarish intensity of Premier League existence, or a more stark 2022 contrast. Under Eddie Howe and, a money-is-no-object ownership, the Magpies have enjoyed far more than just moments, winning games in bunches to transport fans far from the apathy and angst that had previously set in at St James' Park. Moving on up now, out of the darkness, as the song said, prior to kick-off.

Where Leeds enter 2023 hoping for better and needing it, Newcastle simply hope for more of the same. And yet what transpired when they met allowed only one side to emerge from their final 2022 outing and cross the threshold of the year with any sense of satisfaction.

If torrential rain wasn't enough to make for a war of attrition, then Leeds' doggedness and Newcastle's eventual reliance on set-pieces combined to produce one. Settling back into the 4-2-3-1 that Marsch has used most often this season, with Tyler Adams' return from suspension one of three changes, Leeds set out to frustrate and play quickly when the ball came their way.

That's the Marsch plan. Remain compact, press in numbers and play swiftly towards goal when the ball is won. In the first half he felt it worked well, although the big chances, like Chris Wood going past Illan Meslier and botching the finish, the same player failing to hook home from a couple of yards out or Fabian Schar heading just wide from a corner, fell to the hosts.

Leeds were stable enough, without really getting into the game or seeing too much possession. Willy Gnonto fired over, Brenden Aaronson saw a shot blocked and Jack Harrison tap danced through the rain to drill an effort well shy of the near post.

One of Leeds' biggest challenges against a team wanting to dominate the play and knock it around, was the need to press intensely without giving away free-kicks, and at times it was beyond the visitors, who gave Eddie Howe's giants repeated opportunities to trot forward and attack a dead ball.

Either side of half-time the hosts were given more encouragement through free-kicks in dangerous areas, centrally and down by the corner flag respectively, but it was one a lot deeper that should have led to the opener, Kieran Trippier's delivery headed into the path of Wood, who was denied by Meslier.

Had the ex-Leeds man got new shooting boots for Christmas, Newcastle could have been home and hosed and planning their New Year's Eve party outfits by the hour mark.

Properly under the cosh and in survival mode, Leeds looked not only to Newcastle's wastefulness but Meslier's ability to keep them in it, the young Frenchman saving from a Schar back post header. Longstaff shooting over after Leeds were cut through was the last action before Marsch acted, replacing Harrison with Mateusz Klich to try and prevent Newcastle from playing so much football and forcing them to go more direct.

On and on came the home side, fresher thanks to two extra days of rest, and further and further back dropped the Whites. Sean Longstaff blazed over, twice, and Joelinton followed him into the stand with an effort, but Leeds were not to be denied their point and their clean sheet. They tackled, blocked, scrapped - literally in Meslier's case - and ate up time greedily in search of something tangible.

Clean sheets have been few and far between, as Marsch admitted post-game, and against one of the Premier League's form sides this one felt big for Leeds. Big and important.

As for the performance, what Leeds did on the ball - the second half boasted just a Rodrigo shot on target - can be left in 2022 but how they fought for one another, the fans and the head coach is what they must take into the new year.

Leeds' style of play makes them a team built for moments, snatched bits of possession and quick, touch-light attacks that put the ball in the net before opposition sides recover themselves, but 2023 has to contain enough moments to generate wins - more of them and more often. Swapping Bielsa’s protagonism for Marsch’s pragmatism will not be a problem in itself, if there’s joy to be found in greater quantities.

Marsch is finding it stressful, all the time, in an environment challenging him to the fullest but he’s the man tasked with leading Leeds United into this new year, in the pursuit of moments, goals, victories, safety from relegation and happiness, the sustained kind. Hello 2023, Leeds United will see you now.